Qazi’s parting shot: we need to talk for we can’t keep scaring each other

Qazi claimed there is no way forward for the two nations without entering into a dialogue process. He said: ‘‘There is a sense in Pakistan that India is deliberately planting the idea in the mind of Pakistanis that it might go to war with Pakistan and seeks through that policy to get Pakistan to comply with India’s conditions which we see as unreasonable.’’

According to Qazi, ‘‘I don’t think either side can browbeat the other into complying with its demands. Or working itself into an anger so the other side will submit to possibility of irrational calculations by the other side.’’

He warned that no calculations should be made on the assumption that the differences can be sorted outside the dialogue process.

‘‘Because we are two nuclear countries now, we have the capacity to inflict utterly unimaginable damage.’’ So we should not casually adopt policies that raise the possibility of catastrophic outcomes. ‘‘If we didn’t have such destructive powers, we could take greater risks possibly. That space was there, today that space isn’t there,’’ he said.